For
years, the Arizona Diamondbacks have sought to establish a strong
presence in
Mexico. However, the Phoenix-based team is planning something
that
neither the Los Angeles Dodgers nor San Diego Padres have done South of
the
border: Constructing and operating their own baseball academy for young
prospects in Mexico.

While
the comcept of a major league team building and running academies in
Latin
American countries is hardly new (the Dominican and Venezuelan
landscapes are
dotted with them and the great baseball movie "Sugar" opens in such a
setting), the Diamondbacks will be the first to do so in Mexico. Solo
Beisbol's Roberto Espinoza reports that Hermosillo has been chosen
as the
site of both the academy and a D-backs' satellite office (also an MLB
first).

Former
big league first baseman Erubiel Durazo, a Hermosillo native, will
oversee the
operations in his hometown. Durazo spent 1999 through 2002
with
Arizona before playing three more seasons in Oakland, for whom he hit a
combined 43 homers with 165 RBI's in 2003 and 2004 (batting .321 his
second
year with the A's, good for fifth in the American League). Durazo
is
translated as saying, "We're making history as an organization and as a
country. With the support of Sonora governor Claudia Pavlovich,
the Diamondbacks
look to be a 'Mexican' team, build the country's first Academy, then go
look
for other states." Espinoza writes the states of Sinaloa and Nuevo Leon
are being considered for future academy sites. Former D-backs'
All-Star
Luis Gonzalez, now a special Adviser to team CEO Derrick Hall, has been
in
Hermosillo setting up shop (including the naming of scouts) in
preparation for
the team office and academy.

The
news may not being going over well in the Mexican League offices.
The LMB
has had a virtual monopoly over teenage ballplayers in Mexico for
decades by
signing them at an earlier age than MLB teams are able to, then
retaining their
rights when they become old enough to play up north. An informal
blacklist of homegrown players who circumvented the system by waiting
and
signing directly with MLB teams instead was lifted earlier this winter,
allowing expats to play in Mexico after their days in the USA or
elsewhere are
over. The LMB also operates an academy in Carmen, near Monterrey
in Nuevo
Leon) while a similar facility exists in Oaxaca.

MLB
vets Adrian and Edgar Gonzalez, along with their father David, opened
the
Gonzalez Sports Academy featuring Mexican-born baseball prospects near
San
Diego in 2010. Prospects who signed with MLB organizations gave
the GSA a
30% commission, far less than the 70% routinely paid to LMB teams for
the same
thing. The facility shut down in 2012.